An Interest in the Classics Both Slight and Obscene

E.M. Forster, Maurice, Chp. 21:

“Maurice had no use for Greece. His interest in the classics had been slight and obscene, and had vanished when he loved Clive. The stories of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, of Phaedrus, of the Theban Band were well enough for those whose hearts were empty, but no substitute for life. That Clive should occasionally prefer them puzzled him. In Italy, which he liked well enough in spite of the food and the frescoes, he had refused to cross to the yet holier land beyond the Adriatic. ‘It sounds out of repair,’ was his argument. ‘A heap of old stones without any paint on.'”